Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Christopher Weare
ABSTRACT
659
information over the Internet, and domain names are just a few of the
political battles that will shape the Internet.
Third, the Internet is being introduced into a political system in which
actors are already connected by a rich web of communication links. The
existing quantity of political coverage by traditional media already induces
complaints of saturation coverage and information overload. Telephones,
the post, faxes, associational contacts, and face-to-face conversations
provide citizens and ofcials numerous avenues to gather information and
communicate with others. In addition, numerous institutional reformsthe
Administrative Procedures Act, the Freedom of Information Act, open
meeting laws, and formal participation requirementshave facilitated
access to information and citizen input to the policy making process.
Fourth, unlike existing communication technologies the Internet is
inherently multidimensional.(7) The telephone, for example, is mainly
employed for one-on-one, real-time conversations. Television technology
and cable networks have been designed to support one-to-many broadcast
applications. In contrast, the Internet is a generic platform on which
numerous distinct applications can be and have been easily developed.
These include information retrieval, multimedia, telephony, chat rooms,
video conferencing, and broadcast.
Fifth, democracy likewise is a multidimensional concept. As Dahl put
it, the problem facing democratic scholars is not so much the theory of
democracy but rather reconciling the many competing theories of
democracy.(8) Theorists introduce a range of norms including equality,
liberty, the prevention of tyranny by the majority, citizen participation,
responsiveness, and the effective resolution of collective disputes. Differing
emphases lead to contrasting analyses of what democratic systems are and
what they should be. Democratic systems are also composed of a complex
set of institutions. The formal structures of the executive, legislative, and
judicial functions operate at national, regional, and local levels within an
environment inuenced by political parties, interest groups, and the
media.(9) Changes in communication technology will not have identical
effects on these dimensions. For example, broadcast coverage of decision-
making processes has had a greater inuence on legislative than judicial
processes and has expanded the audience much more for national as
compared to local deliberations.(10)
These ve empirical generalizations place two broad demands on any
theory linking the Internet to democracy. The rst two observations argue
against either a strong technological determinism or an overriding
emphasis on the social shaping of technology.(11) Theory must engage
the difcult middle ground in which causation is multidirectional and
conditional.
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Second, the last three generalizations indicate that due to the multi-
faceted natures of the Internet and democracy, researchers must consider
diverse causal paths linking technological change, systems of political
communication, and democratic governance. The literature has already
identied a plethora of such relationships. Researchers have linked the rise
of the Internet to greater citizen empowerment and to the reinforcement of
existing divisions of power; to increased social fragmentation and to the rise
of new forms of community; to reinvigorated democratic discourse and to
Internet road rage that poisons civic engagement; to a new golden age of
participatory democracy and to threats of ever greater surveillance and
control of individuals; to an interactive age of democracy that overcomes
voter apathy and to a commercialization of political life that marginalizes
democratic concerns. This list could be extended, but it sufces to illustrate
the range of causal links that have already been considered.
In response to these two dictates, we propose that a research program
on the relationship between the Internet and democracy requires progress on
three fronts. First, theory must explicate how the Internet advances and
changes politically relevant communication processes. Second, theory must
provide a framework for understanding the role of communication and
information in politics. These two elements are necessary to clarify how
specic advances on existing communication capabilities made by the
Internet map into potential effects on democratic institutions and processes.
Third, theory must explicate the causal mechanisms that link
technological innovation to changes in governance institutions and
processes. The Internet can insinuate itself into political along a number
of avenues depending on the diffusion of the technology, its design, and its
use by political actors. Attention to the specic nature of causal processes is
useful for clarifying causal links and for understanding the ways that
alternative theories interrelate.
While a full synthesis of these three threads is a major project, an
important rst step is delineating the structure of the problem. This
structure can then serve as a road map directing research questions,
clarifying theoretical issues, identifying contradictory hypotheses, and
suggesting empirical tests for such contradictions.
A. Extant Technologies
1. Conversation
2. Information Aggregation
3. Broadcast
4. Group Dialogue
1. Conversation
2. Information Aggregation
will become more rapid, more frequent, and less costly to conduct. The
potential for technology to alter the character of these activities, however, is
limited. Internet voting is less costly, but convenience is only one of many
factors inuencing turnout. The fact that increased use of absentee ballots
has not signicantly altered historical trends toward lower turnout suggests
that voter apathy and ignorance are more signicant barriers than
convenience. While the Internet may increase the number and variety of
political polls, it is not likely to increase their overall quality. Polling, based
on scientically random samples, is already a mature science with a long and
mostly successful track record of gauging public opinion. In fact, new
technology poses risks to the quality of information gathering. SLOPS (self-
selected listener oriented public surveys) linked to radio talk shows, for
example, have created biased, misleading results, and have proliferated on
the Internet. Also, answering machines and other ltering technologies that
enable Internet users to limit their attention to only particular messages
(e.g., e-mails, news channels) make random sampling increasing difculty,
thereby increasing the cost of collecting information concerning certain
groups.
The Internet has a greater potential to reshape other forms of
information aggregation. Surveillance activities will change as message
receivers gain greater power to collate information from multiple sources.
Consequently, the Internet is likely to decrease the inuence of traditional
information aggregators such as major news organizations and empower
new aggregators, such as interest groups that collect news of interest to
their members. By continuing the trend toward decentralized data
processing, the Internet also increases information access. Small and
medium sized organizations and citizen groups, in particular, will be better
able to gather, analyze, and present information more effectively, thereby
extending the scope of information aggregation in terms of the type of
information gathered and of the political actors who employ the
information.
3. Broadcast
4. Group Dialogue
As with conversation, critics contend that the impact of the Internet will
be limited. They argue that because face-to-face contact remains essential to
maintaining group cohesion and member commitment, communities cannot
be based solely on mediated communications. This criticism certainly
contains some truth. Nevertheless, it neglects the fact that the Internet-
based communications are a powerful complement to direct contact and that
the Internet mediates forms of group dialogue that extant communication
technologies either did not support at all or only supported quite poorly.
5. Convergence
6. Summation
have not been inuential, possibly due to their broad scope and difculties
in operationalizing constructs to examine specic questions. Nevertheless,
by framing governance as a communication process, they contribute a
number of useful analytic concepts, linking communication to specic
dimensions of governance. Although their terminology differs, they all see
governance composed of four communication processes: socialization,
channels, networks, and steering.
A. Socialization
B. Channels
Channels mediate between society and the polity and between political
actors. The polity performs numerous functions through downward
communications (e.g., broadcast) to citizens. It mobilizes support,
legitimizes its authority, informs citizens of rules and policies, and
adjudicates disputes. Through upwards communication (e.g., information
aggregation) citizens inform the polity of their demands and provide
feedback. Political actors employ horizontal communications (e.g., con-
versation) for debate, deliberation, and negotiation. The structure of, access
to, and utilization of these channels shapes the power and clarity of
feedback and the manner in which governments exercise their powers.
The concept of a communication channel can be fruitfully applied to a
number of areas of political science. Campaign communications with its
focus on the role of mass media is an obvious example and a dominant eld
of inquiry.(35) Nevertheless, the manner in which channels operate and
interrelate plays an important, though less prominent role, in other areas
including citizen participation in the form of contacting public ofcials,(36)
democratic deliberation,(37) interest group feedback,(38) the implementation
process,(39) and the provision of government services.(40)
The Internet will increase the volume and speed of information
travelling through channels, thereby changing the mix of feedback moving
up through channels and information moving downward. Interactivity
combined with the convergence of differing forms of communication will
also strengthen the interrelationship between channels. For example,
downward communication of information through the Internet can lead
to direct and rapid e-mail feedback. At the same time, countervailing effects
may impede existing channels. The fragmentation of the mass media will
make it harder to reach a national audience and ltering technologies
allow users to shut out unwanted messages. Over all, the changes in
communication channels will alter the quantity and distribution of political
information, thereby altering processes and outcomes. For example,
legislatures may nd it increasingly difcult to include secret riders to bills
as their activities are more rapidly disseminated.
676 WEARE
C. Networks
voters and elected ofcials. Their power has already diminished because
television provides candidates with an alternative link to their constituents.
The Internet should continue this trend. In addition, the types of groups
active in politics should change as technology advantages disperse
communities of interest relative to place-based communities.
As with channels, technology is only a partial substitute for existing
institutional structures. Extant institutions (e.g., networks) retain important
advantages over Internet-based networks: face-to-face contact between
members, stable task denitions and coordination mechanisms, and access
to resources. The Internet will foster the formation of new networks due to
decreased communication and coordination costs. Nevertheless, the ease of
entry and exit into on-line communities and the inescapable impediments to
collective action constrain the inuence of the Internet, making it more of a
complement than a substitute to traditional institutional forms.
D. Steering
E. Summation
the mix of solutions commonly considered will also change. Finally, the
political stream entails steering and socialization. The Internets impact on
this stream will depend on the degree to which it changes decision-making
practices and leads to consequential shifts in political moods.
new technologies have the potential to alter political channels and networks,
they argue that this potential is thwarted by the social, legal, and economic
design of the technology. For example, elite preferences are likely to be
disproportionately represented in the design of technologies because they
tend to be early adopters and early adopters are inordinately inuential in
the design and success of new technologies.(50)
Testing theories based on this causal paradigm involves a quite
different research program. This perspective dictates that research on the
design and diffusion of technology should precede research on uses and
outcomes because uses and outcomes must be understood within the context
of the technology that is actually deployed. Case studies of the commercial
development of the Internet and of political efforts to craft the legal,
technical, and economic rules that will govern the Internet will be important
areas of study for understanding the social shaping of this technology.
The question of who uses the Internet has already been the subject of
numerous studies of the diffusion of Internet technologies among
individuals, organizations, and countries.(51) These studies uniformly nd
a digital divide in current access to the Internet, differentially empowering
existing elites. These early studies, however, provide at best an incomplete
picture of the eventual effects of access patterns. The divide is narrowing,
and as later adopters get on line, the mix of Internet users will change
dramatically, becoming more representative of the population as whole. In
addition, as late adopters join the Internet community, their interests and
preferences will have an impact on the design and mix of services offered by
the medium.
media can have multiple affects. More fundamentally, the manner in which
people are organized and interrelate is a central determinant of political
culture and preferences.(52) Consequently, to the extent that the Internet
affects all forms of social organization and interaction, it will have indirect
constitutive impacts.
Attitudinal surveys and political ethnographies that chart the
introduction of the Internet into political and social life will be the main
methods to analyze these trends. This research program has hardly begun
and promises to be challenging especially considering that individual,
organizational, and social level effects can either reinforce or counteract one
another, requiring multiple studies to sort out overall impacts. In addition,
researchers face a serious selection problem making it difcult to
disaggregate the effects of Internet use on political attitudes from the
political attitudes that lead people to turn to the Internet for political
discussion, information, and action.
E. Summation
V. CONCLUSION
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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